Praxis Persons with Lived Experience (PLEX)
Amplifying the Voices of Persons with Lived Experience of SCI
Spinal cord injury means many significant changes in your life, but it doesn’t mean that your life won’t be as fulfilling and rewarding as before. Engaging persons with lived experience (PLEX) of spinal cord injury (SCI) in clinical research and their own health decision-making is critical to achieving meaningful advances in SCI care. At Praxis, we partner people living with spinal cord injury with researchers, care providers and innovators.
How We Help
Leveraging networks to amplify lived experience input.
Developing best practices and policy in engagement.
Shaping research, innovation development, and care.
Delivering training and education.
Our Projects
PLEX Leadership
SCI Educational Workshops & Webinars
Indigenous Engagement
Network
PLEX Engagement
Having a spinal cord injury means many significant changes in your life, but it doesn’t mean that your life won’t be as fulfilling and rewarding as before. Engaging people with SCI in clinical research and their own health decision-making is critical to achieving meaningful advances in SCI care. At Praxis, we partner people living with spinal cord injury with researchers, care providers and innovators.
PLEX program partners with community organizations worldwide to facilitate collaboration between PLEX, researchers, funders, policymakers, care providers and industry. We employ an integrated knowledge translation (IKT) approach, involving end-users of knowledge (PLEX, clinicians, decision and policymakers) throughout the entire research continuum, increasing relevance and reducing costs. We are recognized as a world leader in IKT and have advised major research organizations, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the National Institutes of Health in the USA.
SCI In Canada
There are an estimated 86,000 people living with SCI in Canada with 4,300 new cases reported each year. With an aging Canadian population, the total number of people living with SCI in Canada is expected to climb to over 120,000 in the next decade.
According to data from our RHSCIR study, the average age of someone who sustains a SCI is 51 years old (Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry – A look at traumatic spinal cord injury in Canada, 2017)